


The Devil Believes (or at least he did)

by lsularak



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Angst, Daredevil Season 3, Defenders - Freeform, Depression, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Kinda, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Post Defenders, Post Jessica Jones S2, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, Slash if you squint, Suicide Attempt, actual dialogue for once, as usual, because fuck you, post-Midland Circle, romance???, sad I guess, that counts ??, tried to get someone to kill him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 11:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lsularak/pseuds/lsularak
Summary: He was spared. He was spared when he didn’t want to be, and he was nothing if not determined, if he wanted his life to end, it surely would. Jessica couldn’t let that happen, though, not now that sheknewhe was alive. For everyone’s benefit, she told herself, not just for her own. Everyone he had ever known wanted him to be alive, had wished for it for months until their hearts eventually gave out from the strain of hoping.The Devil is alive. Not so muchwell, but alive.





	The Devil Believes (or at least he did)

**Author's Note:**

> i am Back and have Written Things™  
> thanks to nikkigoingpostal for giving me a prompt in the first place and also checking over it to make sure i didnt make a Horrible Error somewhere !!! enjoy your Mess Content that is only slash if you squint
> 
> enjoy it!! and constructive criticism is always welcome!!

            Well, Midland Circle was one fine disaster, now wasn’t it? The legal trouble alone in the aftermath made it almost not worth it, but it was the disappearance that made it so, so much worse. Disappearance, not death, never death. Death is Jessica’s swear, and she will not grace that word with being spoken, not even in a whisper; because saying it could make it true, and she didn’t want it to be.

            Watching that building crash down, in glass and metal and flame, it was naïve to assume he would have survived. Matt knew it, too, that’s why he had pulled Danny aside, whispered his one request, his wish that he knew would be his last; _“protect my city,”_ the bastard.

Jessica didn’t just wish it for herself, though. She saw the fear, the gut-wrenching worry on the faces of Matt’s people as they watched the door, waiting for him to limp in, hurt but smug in their victory. She saw the way the realization crossed their faces like a tidal wave, saw the way their hearts broke, so fully and irreparably that she thought she could hear it; but maybe that was just her own heart shattering, maybe she was projecting.

It didn’t matter, then, because she secretly held some hope that he would survive, appear a few days later as if nothing had happened, broken and bloody but alive, missing in the name of lying low.

The days passed. Matt did not come back.

Jessica believes that all of them were holding out hope, praying to a God that only Matt had ever believed in for him to return. Everyone was let down. Everyone was hurt.

Jessica left, eventually, to go see Trish, to hear what she had to say face-to-face. She really, really wished she hadn’t.

 

_“You should be proud! Think of all the lives you saved.”_

_“And the one we lost.”_  

 

 

            And the one we lost, indeed.

 

****

 

            Matt was convinced he was dead. Dead, or on his way there, bleeding out beneath Midland Circle, curled around the shell of a woman he had loved; and that was perfectly fine with him. He knew his city would be safe in the hands of the others. Safe in the hands of people he had known for _maybe_ a week.

Time was strange when being pumped full of adrenaline, he couldn’t be sure how long he had really known them. It wasn’t as if he could check while they were fighting for their lives, ask someone trying to skewer him _“oh, and by the way, do you know what day it is?”_

It would’ve been nice to know, though. It was only natural to be curious about the date of his death, right?

Right.

Nonetheless, he did not know what day it was. He didn’t know the day he was dying, didn’t know the day Elektra died again, and would likely never get a chance to know before he died.

The only problem here, was that he was, in fact, not dying. _“This is what living feels like.”_ Well, if this was life Matthew didn’t want it. It _hurt_ , for the brief moments he was conscious and capable of forming a half coherent thought. He, more often than not, was too drugged to do more than let out a groan through a jaw that stopped obeying his orders long ago, senses too skewed to be of any use.

This was survival; more morphine than blood in his veins, and only a loose collection of sensations to serve for memories.

This was survival, and he didn’t want it.

 

 

****

 

            A year. It had been one year since the supposed death of Matt Murdock, a year since Daredevil fell off of the map entirely for the second time. A tedious year, one that left Jessica with so many more dead ends than she thought possible. As far as the world was concerned, one Matthew Murdock, Esquire, had simply vanished; presumed dead, or in hiding. Hiding from what, no one was sure, no one but the handful that knew both identities. Daredevil was gone, presumed retired, or having met an untimely demise. The news had once assumed him dead, after Frank Castle and his disappearance.

Daredevil’s return to the world had crushed that accusation beneath his heel, suggesting it again would be tentative and a last resort, only for the city to get some closure, closure for the man who had laid his life down for it and nearly lost it several times.

Closure that no one really needed, because Daredevil was _not_ dead. Not if the two morons that were bragging about surviving their encounter with the Devil were any proof. Jessica wasn’t even given another choice, she had to go see them. She had to go see what the bastards knew.

They knew too much, it turned out. They knew the Devil had done something to himself, something damaging beyond repair. He couldn’t fight, not properly, not anymore, probably never again as far as they were concerned. They knew the damage ran deeper than just physical, knew it, because the Devil had asked them for death; tossing them a pole that echoed as it hit one of their hands, begging for a God no one expected him to believe in for forgiveness.

It made the papers. A headline to make anyone stop in their tracks, just to be sure they read it right; _The Devil Is A Believer._ That alone grabbed the attention of everyone, but the content made those who read it gasp and say a prayer for the Devil.

He was spared. He was spared when he didn’t want to be, and he was nothing if not determined, if he wanted his life to end, it surely would. Jessica couldn’t let that happen, though, not now that she _knew_ he was alive. For everyone’s benefit, she told herself, not just for her own. Everyone he had ever known wanted him to be alive, had wished for it for months until their hearts eventually gave out from the strain of hoping.

Hope is powerful, it can keep people going for far longer than they should be able to, but it is also dangerous. When people lose hope, then everything is lost, and there is no chance of it coming back.

Not many people had still held any hope for Matt to come back. Foggy didn’t have any, he lost it the second Jessica stopped finding leads. Danny, he never had any to begin with. _Protect my city_ was not the request of a man who would survive, he thought. It was easier to think Matt had died, anyway. It was easier to think he died in the building crashing down than to think he somehow survived it and was lying under all of that, with no air to breathe and no escape.

It was easier to lose hope, for them.

For Karen, though, for Jessica, they thought it easier to hold out hope. It wasn’t as if there had been any real proof that Matt was dead, it was just the most likely. But they always believed in hard proof, anyway, a private eye and an investigative journalist, their careers were based on finding proof, and there was none saying Matt was dead.

Of course, at the time, there was none pointing to him being alive, either.

That had changed, though, and maybe that wasn’t for the best. Considering how bad it made Matt sound, how worried it made Jessica that she wouldn’t find him in time to stop him from being an idiot, from doing something rash, jumping into a fight he knew he wouldn’t be able to win in his current state. The worry gnawed at her, but she would never admit to it. Instead, she would blame her churning stomach on the fact that it only had alcohol in it as she tried to track a phantom through the streets, hearing a whisper only to find that it was just her imagination, leaving her cold and alone in the streets the Devil had once called home.

 

 

****

 

            She did find him, eventually, or rather, he allowed himself to be found. Sitting on a rooftop one night, legs dangling off of the edge, looking like he had picked one too many fights that he just barely won.

            “Murdock.”

            “Jones.” 

            And that was that, it seemed, as Jessica joined Matt on the edge. They didn’t say anything for a while, just sitting and thinking. Well, Matt was probably thinking, Jessica was more waiting for him to say something so she could yell at him for being an idiot and nearly dying.

            That chance did come, because Matthew, idiot man that he was, tried to explain himself.

            “I was going to–”

            “Shut up, Murdock. You thought you could just up and die, then come back a year later like nothing happened? Like we wouldn’t try to find you? You’re a bigger dumbass than I thought. What were you gonna do, huh? Jump out of a cake? Fuck you.”

“Language, Jess.” The Devil chided, because the dumb bastard couldn’t let it lie, for whatever reason.

“I’ll say what I want to, asshole, just because I used fuck in my sentence it doesn’t make me wrong.”

“I never said you were wrong, I just said you should watch your language.”

“Bastard.”

“Language.” The Devil sighed, leaning back and thinking a moment before he began again, “What do you really want from me, Jess? Want to yell at me for dying some more? Want to invite me out for coffee? Why– Why’d you look for me?”

“Really, Matt? You’re that stupid?”

“I mean, apparently. I like to think I’m smart.”

“Ha ha, asshole. You know why,” and that was as much as Jessica, someone equally as bad at feelings as Matt, was going to say on the topic.

They sat in silence for a little while longer, Jessica discreetly checking Matt over, making sure he wasn’t going to fall over dead the second he stood up, making sure he wasn’t on the path to an early grave. He looked… not _good_ , exactly, but he didn’t look like he was about to give up the ghost. Not yet, at least. He looked like maybe he wanted a shot at life still, and that was enough.

“I’ll be around, Jess.”

With those last words whispered out, almost like a prayer, a benediction, the Devil took his leave before Jessica could stop him. He threw himself right off the roof, she was almost worried that it would kill him, but if being crushed under a building wouldn’t kill him, leaping off of one certainly wouldn’t. So, when she leaned forward to look over the edge, she wasn’t surprised to see that the Devil had already vanished, back to wherever his safe haven was.

At least she knew she would be seeing him again. That wasn’t much, but it was enough.


End file.
